Every day, Americans young and old will get ill or wounded, and they will need to be taken to medical services right away. The modern American healthcare industry is a broad one, and there is more to it than a hospital’s ER. Serious medical cases really do call for the ER or 24 hour emergency care clinics, but more minor medical cases only require convenient care clinics, such as 24 hour walk in clinics. If someone is hurt, a nearby party may look up urgent care or emergency care clinics for them and take them there. A query in North Richland Hills, Texas, may read “North Richland Hills ER” or “North Richland Hills ER 24 hrs” or the like. Searching “North Richland Hills ER” will show local hospitals with an ER, complete with the name and address of such a facility. Meanwhile, any number of urgent care clinics can be found online too, complete with their address, name, and hours of operation. Not all such clinics are open 24 hours a day, but those that are will say so on an Internet search results page.
Finding an ER
If a victim’s life is in danger or if their medical case is serious, they will need someone to take them to emergency services. As mentioned earlier, a specific search in the area such as “North Richland Hills ER” or “emergency clinics in Manhattan” will show some results, and private transport may take them there. Doctors and physicians will have the proper training and medicine to get a patient stabilized and out of harm’s way.
What sort of maladies call for this level of care? A patient with a broken arm or leg will need emergency care, and the same is true for a patient who has suffered injuries to the head or eyeballs. Or, the patient may have suffered bullet or stab wounds that are bleeding heavily, and the patient may also have damaged internal organs. Meanwhile, other patients in the ER may have difficulty breathing or chest pain, and those conditions may soon turn life-threatening, if they aren’t already. The same is true if the patient has suffered a heart attack or a stroke. And what about abdominal pain? This is tricky, since most cases of abdominal pain are harmless or only require an urgent care center visit. But if the pain is severe, sudden, and/or long-lasting, then the safest route is to visit the ER after all. In this case, the pain may have been caused by something serious, such as internal bleeding or even cancer.
It may be noted that a hospital’s ER, while excellent for emergency cases, should not be treated as a catch-all for all medical cases. A patient with a minor illness or wound would spend too much time and money visiting the ER, so instead, they may visit urgent care centers for help. And if it’s not clear what level of care a patient needs, they may be taken to a hybrid clinic that offers both urgent and emergency care. These are flexible clinics that a nearby party may find online.
All About Urgent Care
Urgent care centers and walk in clinics can handle a wide variety of non life-threatening medical cases, and ever since the early 1990s, many hundreds of these clinics have been built across the United States. Most towns and cities will have at least a few of them, and these clinics tend to small and independent (but they may form small local networks). These clinics are staffed with nurse practitioners and physicians, and if a clinic is running smoothly, it may see an average of three patients per hour. Many such clinics are found in strip malls, or may be built into retailers such as Target or Walmart.
Guests may visit these clinics to get prescription drug refills at the pharmacy, or they may get medicinal relief from the common cold or flu during influenza season. Four in five of these clinics can provide care for bone fractures, and nearly all of them can provide relief for ankle or wrist sprains. Nurse practitioners may provide stitches and bandages for shallow cuts, and get ointment and lotion for skin rashes or sunburn.
